Evaluation of Judges` Performance in the Republic of Croatia - practical experiences - Second Regional Conference Montenegro, Budva, 16-18 November 2016 Damir Kontrec, Judge of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia and Member of the National Judicial Council

Evaluation of Judges` Performance – General Remarks On a regular basis – every couple of years As needed – in cases of promotion, election to the position of court president

Evaluation of Judges` Performance in Croatia – State of play before 2013 Earlier Law on Courts (OG 150/05, 16/07, 113/08, 153/09, 116/10, 27/11, 57/11, 130/11) Introduced regular evaluation of all the judges, except for the judges of the Supreme Court, every five years Evaluation in cases of appointment to the high court and to the position of court president Court president is authorised to establish whether a judge has fulfilled Framework Criteria (quota) or not If not fulfilled – obligation to commence disciplinary procedure If not fulfilled for a justified reason, that was to be specifically indicated in the decision of the court president

Evaluation of Judges` Performance in Croatia – State of Play before 2013 When evaluating, the judicial panel was to take into account the following: quantity, quality, compliance with deadlines, participation in professional development, scientific and professional papers, postgraduate study, mentor, international organisations and missions, participation in making legislation, assignment to work in another court or at the Ministry, participation as a professor at the faculty, participation in activities of the Judicial Academy Grades – exceptional performance of duty, very successful, successful, satisfactory and unsatisfactory performance of duty Grade is based on the methodology

Evaluation of Judges` Performance in Croatia – State of Play before 2013 Problems that were identified very quickly Extensive obligations of judicial panels Lack of uniformity in the work of judicial panels Too great importance given to the extrajudicial activities of the judge 2011 – two amendments made to the Law on Courts Regular evaluation was abandoned Evaluation is carried out only in the process of promotion to the high court and appointment to the position of court president Importance of extrajudicial activities was diminished in evaluation of the performance of judicial duty

2013 Law on Courts OG 28/13, 33/15, 82/15, 82/16 Judges are evaluated only in the cases of promotion to the high court, and appointment to the position of court president Grade for performance is given by the competent judicial panel Every year, the court president establishes whether the judge has fulfilled framework criteria or not (consequence of the failure to fulfil them results in the commencement of disciplinary procedure) Art. 97 of the LC sets out the following evaluation criteria Number of judgments delivered by the judge against the number of judgments he/she should have delivered on the basis of the framework criteria for the performance of judges Result of performance by the types of cases in absolute numbers and in percentages Compliance with deadlines Quality of decisions rendered with regard to legal remedies Other activities performed by the judge

Methodology of Calculating Grade for Judges from 2012 Evaluation period For judge of the county court, High Commercial Court, administrative and misdemeanour courts – 5 years For judge of the Supreme Court – 10 years

Methodology of Calculating Grade for Judges from 2012 Art. 6 – calculation criteria (criteria referred to in Art. 97 of the LC are reiterated and elaborated) Art. 7 – manner of calculating performance result – up to 90 points Art. 8 – manner of calculating compliance with the deadlines – up to 3 points Art. 9 – quality of performance – up to 20 points Art. 10 – other activities – additional points if the judge achieved at least 115 points Maximum number of points that can be achieved is 150

Grade given for the Performance of Judicial Duty Exceptional performance of judicial duty – 130 to 150 points Very successful performance of judicial duty – 110 to 129 points Successful performance of judicial duty – 90 to 109 points Satisfactory performance performance of judicial duty – 70 to 89 points Unsatisfactory performance of judicial duty – less than 70 points

Grade given for the Performance of Judicial Duty Legal remedy – appeal lodged with a special five-judge panel of the Supreme Court of Croatia Judges who are members and deputy members of such panel are listed in the Annual Schedule of the Supreme Court

Evaluation of Judges and Work of the National Judicial Council (NJC) Period from 01 March 2015 to 31 October 2016 – new convocation of the NJC The issue of evaluation of judges` performance was raised in competitions for election to the positions of court presidents and election of judges of second instance courts (only in one case competition for election of 1 judge of the first instance commercial court)

Election to the Positions of Court Presidents In the observed period, a total of 43 competitions for election to the positions of court presidents were published. A total of 88 candidates According to the evaluations of judicial panels, candidates to the positions of court presidents were graded as follows: Exceptional – 83 candidates – 94.32 % Very successful – 3 candidates – 3.41 % Successful – 2 candidates – 2.27 %

Election to the Positions of Court Presidents Out of 82 candidates who were given the highest grade, 48 candidates scored 140 and more points 97.73 % of candidates were evaluated with two highest grades

Election to the Positions of Judges The same observed period from 01 March 2015 to 31 October 2016 24 judicial vacancies in second instance courts A total of 292 candidates applied for all the competitions

Election to the Positions of Judges Grades of the candidates for judges Exceptional – 212 candidates – 72.60 % Very successful – 78 candidates – 26.72 % Successful – 2 candidates – 0.68 % 99.32 % of the candidates were given two highest grades 140 points and more – 54 candidates

Special Panel of the SCRH for deciding on appeals against grades given to judges From 01 January 2014 to 30 September 2016 – a total of 30 appeals were lodged The reason for such a low number of appeals is the fact that judges, as a rule, were given the highest grades The following decisions were made Appeal rejected – 16 cases Appeal dismissed – 1 case Appeal accepted – 5 cases Appeal partly accepted – 3 cases Resolved in some other way – 5 cases

Questions Asked with regard to Evaluation Does evaluation of the performance of judicial duty have to be predominantly based on the statistical data on the fulfilment of Framework Criteria (quotas for judges)? Unequal workload of judges in different areas – which has direct impact on statistical results of the performance Lack of uniformity in application of the Methodology of Evaluation by different judicial panels (at the moment, a total of 18 judicial panels carry out evaluation of the performance of judicial duty) The fact that judges in smaller courts, working on different types of cases, can more easily fulfil Framework Criteria than the judges in bigger settings The fact that there has been a decline in the number of cases in first instance courts, which has direct impact on judges ` performance results

Questions Asked with regard to Evaluation Should greater importance be attached to the quality of judges` performance instead of the quantity or how can the optimal balance be struck between quality and quantity of judges` performance? Is it time for gradual abandonment of the ”judicial quota” concept!? Is the percentage of grades (exceptional and very successful) exaggerated? …..

Thank you for attention!